


Cycle of Loss

by thetidebreaks



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Character Death, During Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetidebreaks/pseuds/thetidebreaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life Thea had known was never coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cycle of Loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leobrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/gifts).



> Happy Yule, Leobrat! Funny story, I didn't actually ask for Arrow initially, but I was watching it for the first time around the time I got my e-mail, your prompt made me go "hmmm" and essentially caused me to rewatch all the Thea stuff, especially in the first season. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the character, and for that I thank you a lot. This fic spans from pre-canon to the end of S1, and since you really liked her relationship with Tommy, I tried my best to focus this on fleshing out their relationship especially, because I honestly do feel like there's enough canon references to assume he's been somewhat of a surrogate brother to her (and considering this season's reveal, ha ha...). Seriously, the scene in the car where she asks him not to hate her breaks my heart every time, because at that point, it's pretty clear he's one of the only people she has left.
> 
> Anyway. Sorry this is kind of sad, but holy crow, this kid has had it rough, huh?

The days surrounding the disappearance of the boat were fragmented in Thea's mind.

 

She remembered coming home from a friend's house to find her mother waiting for her near the door, her face red from what she'd later find out was because of crying. Even without a single word, she knew something was wrong. She just never realized it would be this wrong.

 

She remembered her mother sitting her down and starting to tell her what had happened. Remembered the shaking she could hear in her voice. Remembered how hard her throat constricted when she was told what was happening. What had happened.

 

_'They didn't find any survivors.'_

 

The words didn't even fully settle before she opened her mouth to protest. To say it had to be some mistake. To point out that didn't find anything, period, so that means there's still some hope. The stare she got from her mother was so pitying she wanted to scream and cry and break something all at once.

 

Instead, despite her mother's insistence on her staying with her, she ran from the room and into her own. Slammed the door so hard things rattled in her room. Locked it behind her so no one could come in.

 

Seeing something of Oliver's in her room was what eventually unglued her in the end. She remembered not even realizing what had happened until she felt the tears slipping down off her cheeks, and the only thing she could think to do was bury them in her pillow.

 

She doesn’t remember when they stop. Sometimes she wondered if they ever really did those five years.

 

* * *

 

It was only a matter of time before it was all out to the press. Statements were made, first from her family’s representative, then by her mother herself. The morning she was to go in front of everyone to talk about the tragedy that had befallen her family, she asked Thea to be by her side. To be the dutiful daughter of their fractured family and play along with what she still didn’t believe was true. She refused. She refused and refused until her mother finally gave up trying to reason with her. She didn’t have time for this, she had said, completely ignoring her insistence that they were all giving up too soon on the two people they lost.

 

It would be the first in a long line of times when she felt like no one was listening that mattered.

 

In the end, her decision to not play along would come to bite her. Her brother had always been the center of tabloid attention, and his death had people digging for exclusive scoops. She had barely been seen through the entire process, and that made people interesting. Despite all attempts to shield her, it was only a matter of time where she would be caught unawares. She’d been so close to home when she found herself approached by a complete stranger.  It scared her, especially when the person got in her face and started asking her a barrage of questions about her family.

 

"Leave me alone,” she had demanded, trying to get around the man. That had only made him more aggressive, and she found her escape blocked by a hand grabbing her arm. She tried to wretch her arm free, but  it only made him tighten his grip. The faraway sound of car tires screeching near them was something she vaguely noticed – and it seemed like the reporter barely noticed at first, too.

 

“Hey!”  Thea heard someone yell. Looking up, Thea was surprised to see a familiar face running toward them. It took moments for Tommy to get between the two of them, breaking the grip she hadn’t been able to. The man seemed a little intimidated, but didn’t back off.

 

“I was just trying to ask her a few questions –“ he began to protest.

 

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure I just saw someone grab a thirteen year old girl’s arm against her will. Real nice, by the way, you guys always find a new way to surprise me,” he said, flatly, as she looked at the increasingly nervous reporter. “So let’s make a deal here, okay? I don’t grab you and call the cops to tell them I witnessed an attempted assault on a kid and caught the suspect – maybe a kidnapping, who knows? - and you leave and never show your face around here again.”

 

The man glared at him – she heard him throw a casually insulting remark toward Tommy, even – but he backed off.  Fled the scene. And it was only when he was gone from view that he turned around and faced her. He towered over her a lot like Oliver did, like her dad did, and for a moment it felt comforting.

 

“You okay, Thea?” he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder. She only realized then how much she was shaking, which would explain why Tommy was looking at her like she was about to fall apart on him. Taking a deep breath, she nodded her head.

 

“Yeah, he just surprised me,” she said, embarrassed now.  There had always been an inclination in her to try to look cool around her brother and his friends. Tommy was no different, though he didn’t seem to be judging her now. In fact, he didn’t seem surprised something like that happened to her at all.

 

“Those guys are creeps. You dealt with them better than I have before,” he said, rolling his eyes at himself.  It made her smile, just a little. Smiling was a rare thing out of her at that point. “You on your way home? Because I was just on my way there, and it’s pretty boring riding alone.”

 

She knew there was likely no reason for him to be going to their house right then. It made her all the more appreciative of the gesture, as much as she would never admit it outloud. What she did do instead was nod and let him guide her to the car he had exited. The entire way back, they talked about everything but the nightmare happening around them.

 

It had been a welcome break.

 

* * *

 

 

The spectacle was ridiculous.

 

They all called it a memorial for her father and brother, but it really wasn’t. It was just another attempt to keep up appearances, and she wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t going to go out and put on a brave face to people who barely knew them and certainly couldn’t appreciate the hole it left in the family. Nevermind the fact that everyone was still so quick to give up on them – she didn’t care if they all called her stubborn or any other name her mother could sling at her through her locked door. It was almost funny to her, honestly, that she could imagine Oliver even trying to sneak off with his friends if he was made to go to something like this. He certainly had a distaste in entertaining their mother’s colleagues, especially the ones that rarely even remembered their names without correction.

 

She didn’t know what would be a proper memorial. She didn’t know she was ready to accept they needed one. But she would deal with it on her own terms, not to rush it so it would all go away. It doesn’t take a long time for her mother to relent. She imagines her already down with the guests, telling them that she’s not feeling well and the fake concern that probably followed with that announcement. It turns her stomach.

 

She isn’t sure how long she’s in the room, listening to music when she heard knocking at her door again. Thea was already ready to steadfastly ignore it – it had worked before, after all – when she heard a voice that was decidedly not her mother’s.

 

“Thea? Hey, can I come in?”

 

She knew Tommy had come to the party, but she hadn’t expected to see him – or anyone – that day. Still, he was there, and he was one of the few people she didn’t really have any problems with. Flipping off her music, she walked over to the door, slowly undoing the lock and opening it a crack.

 

“Did my mom make you come up here?” she asked, sullenly. She wouldn’t have put it past her, even though she didn’t feel like he was going to push like her mother had been pushing. It just wasn’t her first time attempting it with either Oliver or her father or Oliver’s friends. If Laurel were downstairs, she probably would have come up before Tommy did.

 

She hadn’t seen Laurel since it all happened, though. She understood why, as much as she missed her.

 

“She might have, but I would have ended up here anyway,” he replied with an easy smile that was devoid of the pity looks she’d been getting too much of lately. She opened the door wider, a signal for him to step inside, and closed it behind him once he was.

 

“Is there a lot of people down there?” she wondered, leaning against the door. She watched as Tommy slowly circled her room, glancing around. She didn’t mind the scrutiny.

 

“Enough,” he replied, cocking his head in her direction as he glanced over at her. “You look a lot less sick than I was expecting.”

 

Thea wouldn’t quite hold his gaze as she crossed the room and sat down on her bed. After a moment,

 

“I hate this,” she said, wincing inwardly when she realized her voice cracked. She wasn’t going to get emotional now, not in front of someone. Not in front of someone like Tommy, especially.  She had always tried to be so cool in front of Oliver and his friends. “I don’t know why it had to be this whole big thing.”

 

Tommy didn’t answer immediately. At first, she wondered if she said something dumb, but when she finally looked at him, he had a thoughtful expression on his face that she had never seen on him before. He eventually let out a slow sigh. “I hated it, too. With my mom, I mean. Nothing they did for her seemed appropriate, you know? Just a whole lot of people who came out of obligation and never gave her another thought after. I wanted to just let my father do whatever he wanted and leave me out of it. I probably would have, if he had given me the option. I think I’ve realized something, though.”

 

She swallowed thickly, her attention on him fully now. “What?”

 

“My father was dealing with things the way he knew how like I was dealing with things the way I knew how. The only thing I could do for him was to try to go along with it the best I could at the time,” he explained with a half-hearted shrug. She could see his jaw clenching a little, like he was trying to keep his own feelings in check. The expression eventually switched to something a little more recognizable, something more light.  “Anyway. I’m not here to tell you what to do, Speedy. Which it sort of feels like I might have just come off as doing, sorry, I suck at this. Your brother was always better at talking with pretty much everyone.”

 

Thea let out a quiet laugh that morphed into a quiet sob that had been caught in her throat. She was almost surprised to find tears had started to fall down her cheeks. She sniffed as she wiped them away roughly, but she knew he saw. She knew he was watching her, even though she’d immediately looked away.

 

“Sorry,” she whispered, her head hanging low. “I just –“

 

Her words faltered. She couldn’t continue the sentence, not if she wanted to stop crying any time soon. Tommy seemed to notice it, and reached out to put a light hand on her back. She leaned into it, until it eventually turned into a proper hug.

 

Not long after he left, she got herself together and joined the party. There was no missing the surprise that crossed her mother’s face when she realized she had come downstairs. Not far from them in the crowd, she caught sight of Tommy.

 

She smiled. He smiled back.

 

* * *

 

 

Not long afterwards, things got worse. It wasn’t even the kind of worse that she could really explain. No one talked anymore. Tension was a constant companion. Thea felt like she was stepping of eggshells around her mother, and she never knew why. It just was what it was, and there were days where she found herself only briefly glimpsing her mother before she disappeared into another room, without barely a hello at her.

 

It was as though she had become an orphan without losing the last family she had left. Every time she tried to get through to her, her mother simply continued to remain distant. Out of reach.

 

It was one particularly bad fight that sent her outside, to the quiet area where the headstones were. She hadn’t been to the spot since the funeral, and once she was out there, she didn’t know what she was doing. Didn’t know what possessed her to come there of all places. Slowly, though, she found herself approaching her brother’s headstone. She sunk down onto the soft grass, kneeling in front of it. Tentatively, she reached out and gently traced the name. She eventually dropped her hand to her side. Overhead, clouds were beginning to blot out the sunny sky.

 

“I wish you were here,” she whispered, as if wishing would ever bring either of them home.

 

As if wishing could make things go back to the way they were.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Thea got high was the first time she got drunk, too. Her friends had convinced her to go to a party with them, assuring her that she was going to have a great time. At that point, the house was stifling in its silence, and she didn’t have a second thought about taking up the offer. It wasn’t as though anyone even noticed what she was doing.

 

The party ought to have been overwhelming. Instead, for at least a few hours, she felt free.  People paid attention to her. They welcomed her with open arms and open beer bottles. She tried alcohol she never heard of that night. She took her first bong hit. A lot of the older guys were amused at her stamina, and it felt good to prove to people that she could keep up. She loved every moment of it, the rush of it all, that she finally understood why her brother partied.

 

She only wished she’d gone to one earlier than that. Even when she woke up the next day sick, she didn’t care. Her mother took her story of a stomach virus at face value, even though she still reeked of alcohol. It was that moment she realized just how much she could get away with with little to no consequence.

 

It would be the first of many nights she spent out and some of the tamest things she would eventually put into her body. Every time she stumbled into her home, some small part of her hoped someone would notice. Some small part of her wanted someone to care.

 

Apparently that was too much to ask for.

 

* * *

 

 

With age came a cynicism her younger self never had. It was why she had closed her heart off to the idea anything would ever change, even though some small part of her always did fight the idea of the people she loved being really, truly gone. The day she found out she had been at least right about Oliver had been the best day of her life. Despite everything, she honestly felt like maybe – maybe things would be different. Her father might not be coming home, but some piece of their family was being put back into place.

 

She should have known not to get her hopes up. Every single time she did, she ended up like she was, drowning her sorrows in whatever she had available. It was like he was an entirely different person. A person that barely was ever around, which felt like some sort of cruel joke when she had spent the last five years with a ghost of a mother.

 

It only made her spiral harder in the end. Her brother saw it, but it only made her want to push back. He had no right to judge her. He had no right at all, when he was gone for so long, even if it hadn’t been his fault. A part of her knew she was angry at him for things he couldn’t control, but that didn’t mean her temper didn’t flare up about it anyway.

 

He side-stepped her more often than he spoke to her. Disappeared out of nowhere only to return like nothing happened. And all the while, all the while she was supposed to be so patient. He had a hard time, after all. She was just going to have to deal with it, and her daring to do otherwise was acting out.

 

It wasn’t supposed to turn out that way. She wasn’t sure what was worse, him not being around at all or him choosing not to be around. Either way, it hurt.

 

* * *

 

 

She vaguely remembered the actual argument she had with Tommy. It was a moment that she should have seen coming, honestly. Getting her hopes up really only always lead to what was happening – the kind of disappointment she felt mixed with her head swimming from the alcohol she consumed. Tommy was, as always, patient. Forever patient with her. It was no wonder she ended up having feelings for him over the years. He had shown up more for her and done more for her than anyone had since the accident, and now –

 

Well. He swore it would be okay, that everything was fine. The reassurances were the exact opposite of the truth, because her life stopped working that way a long time ago. No, she was sure, even in her drunken haze, that he would for sure keep her distance. ‘For her own good’ would be the reasoning, she could see it already. Despite the negative thinking, though, the way he took care of her was not unlike the few other times he took the role. He let her lean on him for support. He made sure no one was around to see.

 

“I puked in your car,” she murmured, her voice sounding far away to her ears.

 

“Yeah, I noticed that, actually. Going to be pretty interesting to get out,” Tommy replied, in a tone that denoted no kind of anger. She honestly was having a hard time believing he was as cool as he was about it. He got her into her bed without much trouble – mostly because she was at the point she was practically a ragdoll for him to drag. She fought to stay awake, though it was already clear that was a losing battle.  She was so tired.

 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, her eyes half closing. He didn’t respond at first, and for some reason she felt a little amount of panic at that, and the fact he decided to stand up at that moment. She thought he was leaving, but after a minute or two, she heard a soft clink of a glass.

 

“Water and Advil for when you wake up,” he explained when he noticed her focusing on what he brought her. She must have looked up at him with some kind of look that worried him, because he added, “Hey. Don’t worry about this, okay? I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

 

She didn’t know if it was the alcohol lowering her defenses, but in that moment, she believed hm. She should have known better.

 

* * *

 

 

In the days following the disaster, Thea felt like she was going on autopilot. Things were happening around her, but they weren’t registering. She had always assumed she knew the ache of loss already, but she’d been wrong. The kind of pain she felt now dwarfed how she felt before.

 

Tommy’s funeral was a small affair – one of many happening that day in the city. She went to pay her respects, and for a long time, she simply sat in the back, with wide-rimmed sunglasses and a hat to more or less mask her identity.  It was funny, but she found herself thinking a lot like she had back when Oliver had been assumed dead – he would hate the funeral being thrown for him. A small part of her was glad it was closed casket, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted her last view of him to be as lifeless and silent as everything around her. When she felt tears start to threaten to spill, she decided it was time to leave.

 

She went to the hospital afterwards. Roy was on the mend, one of the few good things she had to cling to at that point. The machine hooked up to his vitals beeped softly in the background as she went into the room. He was awake and sitting up, still looking a little worse for wear. A half-smile lifted on his face when he saw her, though she must have looked haggard enough for even him to notice once she got closer. Without a word, he shifted over, giving her room. She didn’t even care what the nurse might say, she took the offer of space and got into the hospital bed with him, careful not to jostle the wires attached to him as she did. He wrapped an arm around her and she rested hers on his chest.

 

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she admitted quietly, the emotions in her raw. There was a time she would have gone to the worst kinds of distractions, but she didn’t want to do that anymore. She wanted to be better than that, for everyone and for herself.

 

“Hey, you’ll figure it out. You’re like the smartest girl I know,” Roy replied, honestly. It was a vote of confidence she hadn't realized she sorely needed at that point until it was there. She wanted so badly for him to be right. Something had to change.

 

She'd been through too much to give up now.


End file.
